Clinton hoping to make his wife the next comeback kid

Jill Zuckman

Sunday

Jan 6, 2008 at 7:38 PM

MILFORD, N.H. — It’s hard to chart the precise starting point for Bill Clinton’s political legend, but New Hampshire is as good a place as any.

Clinton launched his campaign for the Democratic nomination for president here in 1992, offering himself and Hillary Clinton as a two-for-one package for the White House. He went from long shot to leader, then rocked from scandal-scarred to Comeback Kid, finishing second, all in a few turbulent weeks.

It would foreshadow his presidency in many ways, a long run of highs and lows, heavy on drama.

Clinton dealt with the revelation that he had written a letter to his draft board suggesting a calculated effort to avoid military service during Vietnam. Then he countered allegations — made in a live televised news conference — by Gennifer Flowers, who claimed a longstanding affair with him. Finally, Bill and Hillary Clinton sat for a dramatic “60 Minutes” interview on Super Bowl Sunday, professing the strength of their relationship.

New Hampshire embraced the Clintons from that point. Now voters here could dramatically affect the fate of Sen. Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and decide whether they will validate that two-for-one proposition.

So the campaign is using the former president as Surrogate-in-Chief, and he is canvassing the state with characteristic energy.

But he is coming to a state that is much changed from the early 1990s, both in its people and its economy. Many of the new voters in the state have little frame of reference that includes the Clintons.

That said, the former president is still an enormous draw. At a recent Democratic dinner, 3,000 political activists gathered under dim blue lighting to listen to their candidates for president. And then Bill Clinton walked out.

His appearance brought the crowd to its feet, with loud cheers and a surge of energy.

“He still gets that warm response, that sense of ‘Oh yeah, we know you, we remember when things were better and we weren’t feeling so trodden upon,’” said state Senate Majority Leader Sylvia Larsen, a Clinton supporter in ‘92, as well as 2008.

Clinton’s chaotic campaign in 1992 has become a central part of the lore of the primary. He demonstrated both his trademark resilience and stamina, often campaigning through the night and the next day without sleep.

Now, Clinton is hoping to make his wife the next comeback kid as he travels the farthest reaches of the state, speaking on her behalf following a disappointing third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses.

The strategy is to have Hillary Clinton hitting communities in the populous southern tier, where the Boston media market dominates, and the former president visiting the rural, northern areas to reach voters often neglected in the final weeks of a campaign.

With an 87 percent approval rating, the calculation is that Bill Clinton still has the power of persuasion.

“This is Clinton country,” said Terry Shumaker, one of the original state co-chairs in 1992 who later became ambassador to Trinidad and often travels with the former president throughout the state.

Shumaker said Clinton is not limiting himself to making speeches. He’s also twisting arms one-on-one.

“In Dover, he told me with a gleam in his eye that he had convinced somebody who was going to vote for Sen. (John) Edwards to vote for Hillary. At an earlier stop, he convinced an Obama supporter to vote for Hillary,” Shumaker said. “He was very proud of himself.”

But other Democratic activists aren’t so sure that Clinton can close the sale.

“I think he’s still very popular in this state and is perhaps the most popular Democrat in the nation, although he has competition and that competition is coming from Barack Obama,” said Joe Keefe, the former state Democratic chairman who endorsed the Illinois senator this weekend. “I think part of what is motivating Obama voters is a desire to move forward and a desire to move beyond the Clinton-Bush years and move into a new era.”

Among Democrats, there is no hint of animus toward the former president. His trial-by-fire campaign here forged an indisputable bond.

“When you’ve been through tough times with people, you grow closer,” said Larsen. “There’s a sense of ‘We overcame those difficulties and look at what a great president we got.’”

And some say there are lessons to be learned in what Clinton went through all those years ago.

“He just refused to quit,” Shumaker said, adding that he will never forget the night one week before primary day when he called in his core New Hampshire advisers.

He asked the national staff to leave. He said, ‘This isn’t going very well. What do you think I should do?’” Shumaker recalled.

They recommended he stop holding news conferences and start spending more time with real people. So Clinton went to the Manchester mall, and to the Puritan Back Room restaurant, and a bowling alley and Dunkin’ Donuts.

“People would come up to him and say, ‘Governor, we think you’re a good man, hang in there, don’t give up,’” Shumaker recalled. “It was a pretty amazing thing. He just refused to give up.”

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